Paolo Sorrentino, Isabella Rossellini Talk Pain, Joy, Fellini and Maradona in ‘The Hand of God’

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticIt’s no spoiler to say that Luigi Pirandello dies nine minutes into “Leonora addio.” This alternately playful and lugubrious work of reflection isn’t really about the controversial Italian writer’s life at all, but rather his legacy, and in a less literal yet ineluctable sense, that of film directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani.Over the course of half a century, the two cinematic siblings made movies together — including 1985’s “Kaos,” an omnibus-style collection of five Pirandello stories — bookending their career together by winning top prizes at the Cannes and Berlin film festivals (for “Padre Padrone” and “Caesar Must Die,” in respectively). And then, in 2018, Vittorio died.

Over only a relatively small number of feature films, Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher has established herself as one of the most interesting working today. And it doesn’t appear that she’s going to be stopping anytime soon, as she is already in the middle of filming her latest feature, “La Chimera.” According to Variety, Alice Rohrwacher has started production on “La Chimera,” her newest feature, which will star Josh O’Connor, Isabella Rossellini, Carole Duarte, Alba Rohrwacher, and Vincenzo Nemolato.

Former Manchester United midfielder Paul Ince believes Jadon Sancho has struggled to adapt to life in the Premier League because it is a step up in quality from the Bundesliga.

Manchester City have entered the race to sign Paulo Dybala from Juventus - according to reports.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentEmmy-winning “The Crown” star Josh O’Connor will be the protagonist of Italian auteur Alice Rohrwacher’s next film “La Chimera,” which is set in the world of archeological looting and is currently shooting in and around Southern Tuscany.O’Connor, who in “The Crown” played the young Prince Charles, in “La Chimera” is playing a young British archeologist named Arthur who gets involved in an international network of stolen Etruscan artifacts during the 1980s.Also starring in “La Chimera,” which can be loosely translated as “The Unrealizable Dream,” are Isabella Rossellini as a retired opera singer; Brazilian actor Carole Duarte (“The Invisible Life”) who plays another non-Italian woman who intersects with Arthur; Alba Rohrwacher as an international artifacts trafficker; and Vincenzo Nemolato (“Martin Eden”) who plays one of the “tombaroli,” literally grave robbers, as artifacts thieves are known in Italy. “‘La Chimera’ is the story of a young English archaeologist who gets involved in the underground world of the ‘tombaroli,’ the nocturnal raiders of Etruscan tombs,” the director said in a statement.Rohrwacher added that the film “is the final piece of a triptych on territory that I started with ‘The Wonders’ and which poses a central question: what to do with the past?” “Is the past merely a lost world, or does it intimately concern our present?,” Rohrwacher asks.“The Wonders,” which screened in Competition in 2014 at Cannes, winning the Grand Prix, was followed in 2018 by “Happy as Lazzaro” that also launched from the Croisette where it scooped the award for best screenplay.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentFour years after the death of his brother Vittorio, with whom he shared a celebrated career, Paolo Taviani is back in the Berlin competition solo, with “Leonora Addio.” The brothers won the Golden Bear in 2012 with “Caesar Must Die,” about high-security inmates performing Shakespeare.The free-form film he made –– screening on Feb. 15 –– takes its cue from a story titled “Il Chiodo” (“The Nail”) by Italian playwright and author Luigi Pirandello, written shortly before he died in 1936.

Hallmark Channel is back with another installment of The Wedding Veil trilogy.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentCannes’ Directors Fortnight, the section running alongside the Cannes Film Festival, is set to change its leadership after the 2022 edition. It will be Paolo Moretti’s third and last edition as artistic director of the program.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentIn a new series, Variety catches up with the directors of the films shortlisted for the International Feature Oscar to discuss their road to the awards, what they’ve learned so far, and what’s taken them off guard.Paolo Sorrentino, who won an international Oscar for “The Great Beauty” in 2014, is back in contention with autobiographical film “The Hand of God,” which marks the director’s return to filmmaking in his native Naples 20 years after his debut, “One Man Up.”This Netflix Italian original film is the story of a goofy kid named Fabietto who starts harboring a passion for filmmaking in the tumultuous Naples of the late 1980s. As Sorrentino has put it, “it’s a tale of destiny and family, of sport and cinema, love and loss.” It’s a great honor and a great responsibility to represent my country once again. Being a candidate for the second time fills me with joy because it means that the first time wasn’t just a fluke.

Denis Zakaria says he is looking to emulate Manchester United star Paul Pogba after he completed a move to his former club Juventus in the January transfer window.

Manchester City have been handed a huge boost in their chase of Erling Haaland, with reports in Spain suggesting the striker isn’t a priority for Real Madrid.

Weathering the storm! Melissa Gorga and her husband, Joe Gorga, had some difficulties during the last season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, but now they’re back on the right track.

Editors note: When we think of Robert De Niro and Italy, it’s easiest to focus on the Sicilian town of Corleone, because of his Oscar-winning turn in The Godfather: Part II. But De Niro wanted to focus on Naples, which director Paolo Sorrentino brought to life in The Hand of God. De Niro was so moved, he wrote a guest column for Deadline on why the film touched him so dearly.

Mask up! Joy Behar, 79, went into the weekend with a warning for New Yorkers who may run into Sarah Palin, 57, as she’s been spotted in a few NYC hot spots, since testing positive for COVID-19. The comedian shaded the unvaccinated politician, while wishing viewers a good weekend on the Friday January 28 episode of the talk show. “Take a little time to enjoy The View, and if you see Sarah Palin, you better get tested,” she said.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItaly’s True Colours has taken international sales on “Perfect Strangers” director Paolo Genovese’s new movie, a comedy drama titled “The First Day of My Life.”The Rome-based sales company will be launching pre-sales at the upcoming online EFM market on Genovese’s latest concept pic, which has echoes of Frank Capra’s classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.”Based on Genovese’s novel of the same title, which was a bestseller in Italy, “The First Day of My Life” revolves around four characters on the brink of taking their lives who make a pact with a stranger with supernatural powers, played by “The Great Beauty” star Toni Servillo. The mystery man gives them a chance to travel forward in time to see for a week how their friends and relatives would react to their deaths and what the world would be like without them.

Manchester City are 'on the brink' of completing the signing of highly-rated Hungarian forward Zalan Vancsa.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentNaples-set young adult series “The Sea Beyond,” which depicts the world of a juvenile jail in the crime-ridden Italian city, is scoring a slew of international sales prompted by its phenomenal ratings on pubcaster RAI.Germany’s Beta Film, which is selling the show about kids behind bars produced by Rome-based Picomedia and RAI Fiction, has inked deals with WarnerMedia Latin America for HBO Max, Sweden’s free-to-air channel TV4, cabler HOT for Israel, and streamer Blu TV in Turkey.The deals mark a rare case of an Italian young adult series traveling abroad.Set in a youth detention center overlooking the bay of Naples, “The Sea Beyond” depicts a world populated by kids apparently without hope, “given that they mostly belong to [the Camorra] organized crime syndicate that Naples is known for,” said Picomedia chief Roberto Sessa, who added that the show also has “all the color and vitality of that city.” Instead, “It’s like the flip side of ‘Gomorrah’ in that it gives a sense of hope,” Sessa noted, because “there is light at the end of the tunnel for these kids.”Sessa also pointed out that they took some poetic license by making the youth penitentiary a place for both men and women who get to interact “with all the relationships and passions that stem from this.”The jail warden is a woman named Paola Vinci, played by Carolina Crescentini (“Bastards of Pizzofalcone”).Directed by Carmine Elia, Milena Cocozza, and Ivan Silvestrini, “The Sea Beyond” is now at its second season which debuted on RAI in mid-November 2021 both on the pubcaster’s linear RAI 2 channel and on its RAI Play streaming platform.It has become a minor phenomenon in Italy because it’s the first show that proved a

One of the burning questions Real Housewives of New Jersey fans have had about Teresa Giudice, 49, and her fiancé Luis Ruelas’, 46, wedding is whether or not her ex-husband and father to her four daughters Joe, 49, would be invited. Teresa opened up about her plans for an Italian wedding in a new interview with E! News, and she revealed that she does plan on extending the invitation to Joe.